Well that’s an absolute blast of childhood nostalgia. We had this movie on VHS when I was little and I remember watching the heck out of it, although I haven’t otherwise seen it in decades now. Truth be told, it wasn’t until recently that I realized it was even a sequel…

In any case. The Rescuers (Down Under) is the story of a worldwide society of mice that take it upon themselves to rescue human children in need of help. It’s a nutty premise, but just go with it. This time around, it’s a boy kidnapped in the Australian outback (with a wonderfully over the top poacher as the villain) and somehow the team they send are two mice from… New York? There’s no one else closer? Only two? Anyways, they have to go rescue the boy, there are a few tense moments, a lot of adventure, and in the end the villain is defeated and the boy goes home free. It’s got a number of tense moments–more than I remember truth be told–and my younger viewers needed a bit of attention through a few points. But I think they enjoyed it well enough.

Charactwise, Bob Newhart as Bernard and Eva Gabor as Miss Bianca are delighful. There’s a reason that with Ms. Gabor’s passing after this film they didn’t make a third one. The big stars of the show though are George C. Scott as McLeach, the big loud big bad (as mentioned before) and Wilbur, voiced by the ‘cannot unhear it once you know it’s him’ John Candy–replacing the original albatross Orville. He’s a real gem in this, if perhaps a bit over done.

Overall, I’m not sure if it will make it into our standard rotation mostly because of the few tense moments I mentioned, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes up at least every once in a while. It’s a surprisingly solid kid’s action adventure flick! It’s only on low on my yearly list primarily because of how much I enjoyed the rest of the movies this year!